Openings: “We gather here as individual people:”

We gather here as individual people:

• young and old;
• male and female;
• temporarily able and disabled;
• gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight people,
• all the colors of the human race;
• theist, atheist, agnostic;
• Christian, Buddhist, feminist, humanist.

We gather here as a community of people who are more than categories.

We gather here—each ministering to the other, meeting one another's strength, encouraging wholeness.

We give thanks for this extraordinary blessing—the gathering together of separate, unique individuals as one whole, one body, our church.

Here may our minds stretch, our hearts open, our spirits deepen.

Here may we acknowledge our brokenness and be ever stirred by love's infinite possibilities.

Come, let us worship.